While most of the injuries sustained by food service personnel are minor, the high potential for serious injury is present. And, like all accidents, food service injuries are preventable.
If food service employee injuries and accidents are to be prevented, or even reduced, senior management, first-line supervisors and employees must work as a team. Management must provide a safe work environment, first-line supervisors must enforce safe work practices and the food handlers must observe correct and safe work practices.
Cuts and Burns
Sharp knives, slicers and heat are tools of the food service trade. Consequently, employees must be taught to work safely in a hazardous environment.
The meat slicer, for example, is a valuable food service tool and probably accounts for more serious cuts than any other single implement in the kitchen. These injuries are due to either carelessness, lack of training or lack of enforcement. No one, including a supervisor, should operate this ultra sharp machine without extensive training in its operation, safety requirements and, most important, cleaning. (I shudder when I recall a ski area employee cleaning a rotary meat slicer by holding a wet sponge against a fast turning blade.) The slicer should never be cleaned or serviced while plugged into a power source. The use of a mailed glove (metal mesh) is strongly recommended for cleaning and for using the slicer. This safety device is available from most safety supply stores or kitchen equipment supply houses and is relatively inexpensive.
Most of us have cut ourselves with a knife at sometime in our lives. The reasons being cut are the same for food handlers: using a knife incorrectly, using a dull knife or using a knife for a purpose for which it is not intended, such as opening a can. Believe it or not, fewer people are cut while using a sharp knife than while using a dull knife. A sharp knife cuts through the item smoothly, with a minimum of effort, while a dull knife must be sawed, pushed or hacked in order to sever the item to be cut. Properly used, the food should be pushed to the knife with the back of the curved fingers instead of holding the item to be sliced and moving the knife to the food. Every food handling employee must be taught the basics of health and sanitation to protect themselves as well as guests from infection. A complete first aid kit is a must in the food handling area. Cuts, regardless of severity, should be covered with at least, an adhesive strip and that is changed after every hand washing.
Burns are preventable. Hot pads or mittens readily available and in good condition, will preclude many burns. Torn, greasy pads impose either a false sense of security or an unnatural grip while avoiding the holes on the surface. Another cause of burns is the filling of kettles and pans too full and then attempting to move them. In addition to training employees, scribing a “full” mark on large pots or kettles helps avoid accidents.
Slips and Falls
Usually slips and falls can be traced to two causes: wet or greasy floors and concrete decks, and standing on boxes, milk crates, gallon cans, etc., instead of a proper step stool or ladder. Prevention of slips and falls is difficult to do at a ski area. Floors and decks must be kept dry, and this means spills and tracked-in water and snow must be mopped dry. If the wet floor is in an area visited by guests, it becomes a double-barrelled hazard.
The floor in front of the grill and stove is hard to keep free of grease due to the nature of the “fast food” type cooking done in most ski area cafeterias. A slip and fall in this area presents the additional threat of serious burns and hot grease spills. A minor slip can result in permanently disfiguring burns. The secret to a clean, safe grill area floor is daily (repeat daily) cleaning of the floor, including the use of a commercial grease stripper in the scrub water.
Based on a long career in the Navy and 10 years in the ski business, I am convinced that workers will keep a work place as clean as the person in charge demands. If the boss accepts sloppy conditions, then that is what the employees will provide. If the clean conditions are demanded, then that is what will be provided. I believe the cleanliness of a food service unit, or any other shop for that matter, is a direct reflection of the manager.
The failure to use a proper step stool or ladder is probably a carry-over from the home environment where step stools and ladders frequently are not available, but boxes, chairs, cans, tables, etc., are. Proper ladders should be available and metal milk crates and bread boxes should be prohibited as step stools. The metal or heavy plastic milk crate has probably caused as many inadvertent falls as any other inanimate object in the food service environment. At first glance they look stable, but they are slick, slick, slick!
Back injuries
Back injuries are the number one industrial injury in the United States and Canada. They cost employers and insurance companies over a billion dollars a year. Medical personnel and safety professionals are working diligently on the problem, but with questionable success. In my opinion, the solution lies in the following areas: education, mental attitudes and awareness, physical conditioning and management interest.
Education—Employees must be taught the correct way to lift as well as how not to lift (e.g., simultaneous lifting and turning). This education can be done with movies, lectures by physicians, physical therapists, chiropractors, safety personnel or qualified supervisory personnel. Education also includes the proper way to store food stuffs in order to help prevent back injury such as always putting the heavy items on the bottom shelves, or insistence on the use of backsaving devices such as beer keg lifting tools. The maximum amounts that can be safely lifted by an individual without help during a normal work routine must be known by all employees, with no stigma attached to the person who follows the rule. No person should ever attempt to lift more than half of their body weight.
Mental Attitude—Both men and women have mental attitudes that contribute to back injuries. Males are hesitant to ask for help in lifting objects that exceed one-half their body weight, because strength is high on their ego status list. In today’s world of equal opportunity, females frequently are reluctant to ask for help in lifting an object because this might indicate less than equal status. If such back-breaking mental attitudes can be changed, back injuries can be reduced.
Physical conditioning—The lower back is aided in its task of lifting by the abdominal muscles as well as other muscle groups. If these muscles can be kept in good physical shape they will aid significantly in preventing back injury. Interest in physical conditioning and aerobic exercise classes is a very positive sign.
Management interest—Back injuries cause high medical costs, loss of personnel productiveness, higher insurance costs and human suffering. They are eminently worthy of management concern. Watch how employees lift and instruct them how to do it properly. Investigate reports of back injuries. Be alert for non-job related injuries. Statistics would indicate that a much higher number of back injuries occur on Monday morning than other days. It may be that the back injury occurred during the weekend, but was not reported until Monday. Obviously, back injuries can occur on the job on Monday, but management is advised to look at Monday injuries with particular interest.
Safety in ski area food service is little different than food service in other industries. It has a high incidence of minor injuries with the potential for major injuries. The high turnover of food service personnel exacerbates the safety and accident prevention problem in that employee education and management enforcement must be ongoing and consistent. The high incidence of employee injury in ski area food service can be reduced, but it takes a concerted effort by both supervisors and employees, utilizing education, policy enforcement and attitude enhancement. It is worth the effort!
